


falls the shadow

by nickofhearts



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Grimm AU, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 14:18:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12632802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nickofhearts/pseuds/nickofhearts
Summary: Noct is a Grimm. Ardyn is an exiled prince. Theyhelpeach other.





	falls the shadow

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically an AU of the _Grimm_ AU I scribbled a million notes for but never ended up writing wherein Renard was the one that sent Reapers after Nick's family and then took him in and raised him as his own personal Grimm. So uh, have it for Ardyn/Noct instead? ♥
> 
> It's also the AU my username comes from, in case anyone was wondering! Because Renard tells Nick the story of the very first Grimms: "The prince cut the heart, still-beating, from the monster's chest. He swallowed down the pieces of burning flesh, taking it into himself, the monster's knowledge and power. That was how the first of the _Grimms_ came to be."

_I._

You know Ardyn thinks of you like a weapon, but you don't mind. Weapons must be cared for, to maintain their efficacy, and you are the sharpest shiniest sword in all his arsenal. 

It is, after all, not every prince that may command a _Grimm._

-

You remember the death of your parents like one of those flickering old black and white projections, skipping frame by frame. One moment, they are whole and healthy, laughing and smiling with you. The next, they lie bleeding on the floor, and your small hands had held so tight to the gun that fired a six shots, dead center, into the heart of the Wesen that had murdered them.

You'd waited quietly with them until the police came, the lights flashing blue and red through the windows.

You held onto your mother's hand, though it was cold and still, until an officer gently tugged you away. That was Ardyn, though you didn't know him then. You only knew that you were suddenly alone in the world, and it'd all felt so unreal.

-

Ardyn had taken you home with him, through some special police dispensation. He'd cleaned you carefully of your parents' blood and changed you into a light silky nightshirt that was too large, falling down to your knees. 

"Noct?" he asked you gently. "Do you want to talk?"

You shook your head. It still didn't feel _real._ It felt like you were going to wake up at any moment, and everything would be as it _should_ have been: your parents alive and well, your surroundings the familiar bright colours of your own home and not this strange cold mansion where everything felt so out of place. 

You huddled in the bed of the room Ardyn showed you to, knees tucked to your chin, but sleep didn't come.

You watched the morning light peek through the blinds, the darkness being washed away in its wake, and still, you felt like you were walking in a dream. 

It wouldn't be until Ardyn was holding your hand at their funeral, their caskets being lowered into the ground, that it would all hit you. You'd scream and cry and try to throw yourself in with them, stopped only by Ardyn's strong grip around your middle, holding you until you broke down sobbing against him, finally understanding: Your parents were never waking up again.

Ardyn held you gently, patting you on the back, until there were no tears left. Until there wasn't _anything_ left, and you were hollowed out and empty of feeling.

-

In the days following your parents' deaths, Ardyn told you of the hidden world of Wesen, of Grimms, of fairy tale princes and politics. The monsters of stories were real, and it was the responsibility of the Grimms—the blood of which flowed through your veins—that would keep their evil at bay. 

"My parents—"

"Were Grimms," Ardyn told you. "But they forsook their duty, and this is how they were repaid."

"I'll kill _all_ the Wesen," you swore on their memory. Your hands were so small, but they'd already learned the shape of a gun, how it felt to _murder_ with such a weapon.

"Very well," Ardyn agreed. 

He took your palms in his and made his own promise, kissing you lightly on the backs of your knuckles: "I shall teach you all that I know."

 

_II._

Ardyn was as good as his word. He taught you the use of the many weapons he kept in a secret armory of his labyrinth house, and also how to spot a Wesen at fifty paces, but to hide your face so they wouldn't spot _you._

"What do Grimms look like to Wesen?" you wondered once.

You knew what _they_ looked like, horrible and monstrous under their human guises that only Grimms or others of their kind could see, but the face looking back at you in a mirror was always only your own. You knew they saw _something,_ because they always recoiled from you as soon as you got close enough, and _fear_ filled their expressions, as it should. You'd killed many of their kind since Ardyn had taken you under his wing.

"You know what?" Ardyn murmured. He brushed your hair tenderly out of your eyes. "I've never asked."

 

_III._

Sometimes, the best weapon at your disposal is your very own face.

"People don't look twice at an attractive young man," Ardyn tells you, dressing you up in fine clothes in preparation for a mark that works in a tall high-rise building. That's the thing about Wesen: some of them are even better at playing human than most humans are.

"They notice you," Ardyn continues, knotting your tie for you perfectly. "And yet, they don't." 

He pats away the creases of your crisp dress shirt. "You're like a beautiful painting or a decorative vase: admired and yet untouchable."

"Am I—pretty?" you'd wondered.

Ardyn laughs like you've made a joke. "Oh _Noct,_ " he murmurs against your mouth, and you gasp at the heat of it, at the closeness of him in your space. His hands fit neatly at your waist, and you feel caught in his embrace, though you have no desire to escape. You open your mouth and let him kiss you, whining low in your throat when he moves away after just a moment. You'd _wanted,_ for the first time in so long. You'd forgotten that you could.

"Tonight," Ardyn promises you. "Whence you return to my side."

He brushes one last kiss against the corner of your mouth, and it is like a chain that wraps around your heart.

-

The mark goes down easily, and you watch its face slide back into humanness from the monster that'd run screaming at you as soon as it'd realized a Grimm had come for its head. It doesn't bother you that they always look human after, though you sometimes think it should. 

_You_ know they're monsters, and you know they deserve to die.

-

You don't sleep much, since that night. Sometimes when you close your eyes you still see your parents' bloody forms. 

You hadn't slept at all until you'd snuck into Ardyn's room after a week of staying at his house, curled up with your knees against your chin in a chair by his bedside as you'd watched _him_ sleep, his chest rising and falling in time with his breaths. 

Ardyn was a police officer, the one who'd taken you in when you hadn't had anyone else in the world to rely on. If _Ardyn_ could sleep, that meant it was safe, right?

You'd closed your eyes and woken up hours later splayed haphazardly in the chair. 

Ardyn was missing from his bed, but he'd covered you with a thick warm blanket, and you tucked it tighter around yourself, settling into the folds. It felt somehow like he was still watching over you, hiding you away from all the monsters that hungered for your blood.

You'd closed your eyes again, and this time, sleep took you quickly.

-

Ardyn touches you now, discarding the layers of the suit jacket, the dress shirt, the accoutrements he'd adorned you with for this assignment, and it lacks the innocence and careful care of all the touches that had come before. His fingers move over your skin with a possessiveness that makes your breath catch, and you open up for him like a flower when he presses his mouth against your own. It feels like inevitability, when Ardyn has claimed everything else you have to offer him already.

" _Noct,_ " he whispers against your ear, his breath so hot it feels like he's branding you his.

You arch into his touch and let him have it all.

**Author's Note:**

> It's funny that in the [Nick](http://keinnan.tumblr.com/private/167138406107/tumblr_oyx5knwY0u1sq9geg) version of this AU, I always imagined him ending up very irreverent and careless and a casual danger/adrenaline junkie who fucks his way through the entire bestiary on his way to murdering it, though he remains very loyal to Renard in his own way, and I was always of two minds about which direction he'd swing when he eventually learned the truth of his parents' murder. 
> 
> For Noct though, I think he _relies_ on people a lot more than Nick does, in that Nick is shaped by the people around him, but Noct needs the people around him to keep him afloat, and for that matter Ardyn is also far more manipulative than Renard is, he'd make sure that Noct couldn't _survive_ without him. So. This would probably end up more like the [assassins AU](http://keinnan.tumblr.com/private/166270229607/tumblr_oxmtanigiV1sq9geg) I was vaguely contemplating at one point.


End file.
